China Blocks Google’s Q&A for Chinese Users

You may not be entirely surprised to hear this, but we’ve just heard that a beta Q&A service has been blocked in China.  Google’s “Q&A” service was specifically designed and intended for Chinese users. The way it works is similar to other many other Q&A sites on the internet – users can post a question and receive links to different websites with potential answers.

The beta service is hosted by Google’s Hong Kong operation and was launched last month. However, the Chinese government has since blocked the service and made it unavailable throughout mainland China. It looks as though Google’s woes with China are far from over despite the fact that they recently renewed Google’s license to operate in the country.

Because the Chinese government has such a strong hand on the information that its population receives, many of the questions submitted to the Google Q&A service may have helped fuel China’s decision to block the site. Many questions focus on the formation of political parties, democratic establishments, and how to circumvent the Chinese government. Other questions touched on the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising and other controversial subjects.

Google Q&A isn’t the only Google service blocked by the Chinese government. Other services and applications web users in China are denied access to include Picasa, Blogger, Sites, and YouTube. Some services which are currently only partially blocked include Google Groups, Mobile, and Docs. Makes us wonder if the issues between Google and China will ever be truly alleviated. What do you think?

Source – digitaltrends.com